


Breaking Point

by Fluffifullness



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Durarara!! Kink Meme, Emotional Abuse, Izuo - Freeform, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-04-23
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Izaya was the only one who could touch Shizuo, the only one who could hurt him. If he could do that, of course he could also survive being loved by the blonde. The only question that remained, then, was whether Shizuo could survive being loved by Izaya.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another fill for the LJ kink meme. (I couldn't help it! It's just - Izuo, guys!) The [request](http://drrrkink.livejournal.com/6253.html?thread=24546157#t24546157) was basically for psychological/emotional cruelty, so of course angst abounds. ;)

Izaya loved seeing humans in pain. He also loved seeing Heiwajima Shizuo in pain. He loved humans, but he wasn’t convinced that he loved Shizuo. The logic sounded faulty, yes, but it was just that the blonde was like a little kitten – emotionally, anyway – and when he looked at Izaya with eyes that begged for affection, the informant couldn’t help but mess with him.

It had started weeks – no, maybe months – ago, when Shizuo had finally given in to an attraction that he’d probably been fighting since high school. He’d stopped mid-chase in the middle of a crowded street and _pleaded_ with everything he had. He’d said a lot – asked a lot, promised a lot – and Izaya had been amused enough to go with it. He liked novelty, after all, and the devotion of a monster was truly a novel concept. And one that allowed for any number of amusing games.

That amusement had persisted, and, somehow, so had Shizuo’s desire. No – his obsession, because nothing but need on that level of intensity could explain the blonde’s willingness to endure everything that Izaya so happily put him through.

_“You want me to love you, don’t you?”_

_“Unless you’d rather part ways here… I don’t mind going back to hating Shizu-chan.”_

Threats like that, and every time Shizuo’s eyes would light up with a frightened sort of desperation. He’d fervently apologize for transgressions that were not his own, and he’d take whatever abuse or humiliation Izaya chose to hand down to him.

It disgusted Izaya almost as much as it excited him, and that was why he let things escalate. He was probably looking for the blonde’s breaking point.

~

“I’m fine,” Shizuo muttered in response to an anxious Celty’s typed query. She had been watching him as he chatted with her – about the city, about its latest news and weather – and she hadn’t missed the aching look in his eyes. The fact that he hadn’t smiled, not once. He was usually reserved – or perhaps ‘shy’ was the better term – but he generally had at least a handful of awkwardly-delivered jokes and carbonated laughs to offer his friend. He really was a lively guy, underneath all the insecurity and social ineptitude, which was why the way he was now felt so wrong to Celty.

Her fingers ghosted over the keypad of her PDA, and she let Shizuo take a quick look at the message: _Is it Izaya?_

It was a popular rumor online – the exchange that had put a sudden and complete stop to the violence that usually occurred between those two. Few people _didn’t_ know about it, and it had spawned all manner of premature conclusions and cruel comments.

Celty remembered one exchange, in particular, and she was sure that Shizuo’s recollection was at least as clear as hers. At the time, it had been only a week or so since the initial incident, and a certain board on the Dollars’ forum had been overflowing with conjectures from people who couldn’t have all been there when it happened.

And then, in the midst of all that, one member had posted a single comment – _“I really do love him”_ – five words that were immediately slammed with a wall of ridicule.

_“think that was the real Heiwajima just now?”_

_“No way, no way – that monster couldn’t possibly be in love”_

_“besides, Orihara Izaya is bad news, too. Even Heiwajima Shizuo isn’t that dumb”_

But it seemed fairly reasonable to Celty – that love. Shizuo was just unpredictable, and she doubted that even he always understood his own emotions. Even if he had long been aware of his feelings for Izaya, she could sort of understand why he had held himself back. Fear of rejection, maybe, and definitely fear of somehow bringing trouble to someone he loved. His strength worked that way – like chains, like a barrier between himself and other people. Izaya was the only one who could touch him, who could hurt him. If he could do that, of course he could also survive being loved by him.

She wasn’t certain, didn’t know that she was, in fact, very close to correct.

“…You knew about that?” Shizuo breathed a little sigh of resignation, and Celty experienced a brief moment of panic before she realized that the blonde was responding only to her prompt about Izaya. “Guess you would. You’re sorta scary, though – y’know?”

Celty cocked her helmet to the side to express her silent confusion, and Shizuo quickly elaborated. “What gave me away?”

_You’re different today._

Celty withdrew her PDA as soon as Shizuo had finished reading, then added, _You seem sad._

“I’m not…” Shizuo hesitated, then, and closed his eyes as if he were nursing a bad headache. “I’m not sad.”

 _Alright,_ Celty wrote, and she rested a hand comfortingly on the blonde’s shoulder. Her intention had been to drop the topic there, because demanding answers wouldn’t help anything, but she was surprised when Shizuo jumped a little and cringed away from the small touch.

“S-sorry,” he mumbled, leaning off of the building that had been serving as a backdrop to their conversation and taking a few steps away from the dullahan. “I…” he hesitated again, his gaze slipping past his friend to rest on the pavement at his feet. “I should get going.”

Celty approached the bodyguard slowly, her PDA already extended toward him. He glanced warily up at it and again read what was written there. _Shizuo. I don’t mean to pry, really, but if you’re in pain – well, I’d like to help._

“I’m okay. I really… I’m happy just being with Izaya. So” – he swallowed painfully – “you don’t need to worry, alright?”

Celty ‘nodded,’ offering one more line to Shizuo before hopping back on her motorbike and speeding away.

_I’m always there for you to talk to._

Shizuo watched the dullahan disappear around a bend in the road before sighing and reaching up to rub at the place where Celty had touched him before. Hidden from view by his uniform and the greater pressure of his own hand were lurid, angry-looking bruises that traversed much of his arm and extended all the way down his back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The climax of the first movement, and the very best still to come.

Shizuo didn’t demand anything – not mercy, not understanding, and definitely not love. He _asked_ Izaya to love him. He asked him to forgive him. He asked him to go with him to dinner, to the movies, or out for a walk. Behind every one of these requests was the unvoiced expectation that he would be rejected, and, consequently, he always was. But there remained hope – hope and hopelessness perilously combined and then allowed to seep into every one of Shizuo’s words and actions.

And that, Izaya decided at some point, must have been the main source of Shizuo’s crushing fear. He had to have known how his own thought processes were destroying him – how they were allowing Izaya to destroy him – yet still he persisted. Izaya occasionally wondered what the reason for that tenacity was.

It was just as if the blonde were begging Izaya to crush him.

~

The informant knew that Shizuo would be coming by his place, this time in Shinjuku – he always did, shy brown eyes hidden behind blonde bangs and mouth twitching up in a nervous smile. The informant also knew – very well, because knowing was his job and his obsession –that his little suitor would be forced to walk. The guy didn’t have the money to spare on public transportation, after all, and besides – that much exertion should have been easy for a monster.

Which was exactly why, when he showed up at Izaya’s door, the informant kindly asked – ordered – him to run out and buy them both some sushi. It seemed reasonable; Izaya was also tired after a long day of work, and he was craving ootoro surely just as much as his Shizu-chan was craving him. In exchange for the right to pass an hour or two in Izaya’s presence, Shizuo would doubtless be willing to exert himself just a little more, to spend just a little more of the money he scarcely had to begin with.

“Sure.” Sure enough. The blonde responded without a second of hesitation, ducking his head to hide a soft blush and running one hand shyly through his hair. He looked – well, happy, and Izaya had to wonder if Shizuo had always enjoyed being used. “Ootoro?” he guessed, and Izaya nodded obligingly.

He promised to be back soon, and then he was off. He didn’t wait for Izaya to say goodbye, having learned by now that the informant simply felt no need to ‘waste time on trivialities.’

 

Shizuo brought back plenty of food, but of course there was a depressed air about him now that spoke of empty wallets and skipped meals. Izaya didn’t care, didn’t say a word to his benefactor as he took a seat at the table, dug into the expensive dish and savored each bite. The blonde sat down across from him and tried not to watch him too closely – still, his gaze always managed to return to rest on Izaya, and each time he would sigh softly, his hand going to his shoulder and then trailing on down to his wrist.

“Izaya,” Shizuo said suddenly, and his hands tightened into uneasy fists in his lap as the informant glanced expectantly up at him. “I… Can I stay here tonight?”

“Oh? What for, Shizu-chan?” Izaya maintained a half-apathetic, half-impatient exterior as he leaned toward Shizuo – elbow on the table, amber eyes daring the blonde to elaborate. In truth, though, Izaya found this fascinating; it wasn’t often that his ‘lover’ was able to work up the nerve to ask him for favors, and _this_ was just downright audacious for Shizuo.

“Can I ask you something, first?” Shizuo murmured, then, and his hand was there again on his shoulder. He didn’t wait for Izaya to answer before he continued: “Why do you let me come by all the time like this? You don’t” – his gaze flitted back up to the informant’s face – “actually like me… do you? Please – just give me a straight answer this time.”

Hm. “No, I don’t.”

Shizuo didn’t miss a beat, just nodded and let the pain show in his eyes. “Okay. Which means you’re doing this because it’s fun, right?”

Izaya smiled lazily, set his chopsticks down beside his plate and finally decided to answer, “Does that surprise you? I’ve practically told you before, you know.”

That scared look, a blush rising to his cheeks to herald the tears that he’d carefully been keeping in check. “I’m not surprised, and I’m not… mad, either. I’m really okay with it, and I want you to know that. I just – I think Celty’s worried, and I thought I should try something different…”

Shizuo took immediate note of the irritation that was dawning, unbidden, on Izaya’s face, and he quickly corrected himself – “No, it’s not that I want you to worry about it. I’m fine, this is fine. I just feel like it’ll be my fault that she’s worrying if I don’t try to – to…” To what? Shizuo blinked, his eyebrows rising in an expression of very genuine confusion.

Ah, so perhaps he’d encountered that inconsistency in his line of thought. Obviously – he was damn good at lying to himself, at telling himself that what he had here was normal and desirable and really all he could ask for, but Izaya had experience enough in dealing with things like that to know that no one got away with it for long.

 _Too bad for you, though, Shizu-chan. I’ve been expecting something like this._ And he had, although to resort to something so base seemed a little extreme as a means to the end of prolonging the games he so enjoyed playing with this monster.

Oh, well. If anyone was going to break this thing off, it’d be Izaya, and he wanted to make sure that it’d be painful as fuck for Shizuo. This, what he was about to do, was the best way to make that pain something to be remembered. To cover up the wrongness of it, to let Shizuo keep lying to himself and to forge another net that would keep him here.

“Shizu-chan,” he murmured, and the blonde blinked at the sudden come-hither glint in the other man’s eyes. “This is quite possibly going to be your only chance, so don’t hesitate to take it.”

Shizuo didn’t get a chance to ask what that meant, just looked on in stunned amazement as the informant dropped his black V-neck to the floor and then moved close enough to Shizuo to wrap his arms around the taller man’s neck.

The blonde was warm – really warm, and Izaya could feel his heart pounding through the bartender uniform. “Izaya, I – I didn’t mean that you had to force yourself to do something like this,” he mumbled, his eyes wide and really, truly scared now. “I could hurt you,” he breathed.

Izaya leaned in closer and whispered his next words directly in Shizuo’s ear. “I trust you.” Of course, he didn’t. He knew what he was getting himself into, but this would only work if the blonde gave in to temptation, if he hurt the informant just as he apparently hurt himself – probably did it because he simply had to have that thrill of damaging flesh and bone, the brute.

And it was enough, his knee pressing into the blonde’s crotch and his breath tickling the nape of his neck. Shizuo wasn’t one for self-control, and he’d been duly warned that this was the only chance he’d get. Yes, it was enough, and Izaya was shoved roughly onto his back, stripped bare and hands and teeth and hot tears on his chest because Shizuo really wasn’t holding anything back anymore.

“I love you,” he whispered, hard and heavy and bearing urgently down on the informant, his eyes full of salty tears and apology. “Does it hurt?” But his hands weren’t as gentle as his voice – his voice, laden with emotion, and his hands laden just as much with passion.

“I’m fine,” Izaya responded, reassuring and inside laughing because pain and pleasure make a potent combination any day of the week, but it’s just that much better when you know that it promises more good things to come.

Good things like the subtle breaking of a heart, the besting of a beast, the silent tears and slow self-destruction, self-hate, self-deceit that Shizuo was so good at. Good things that were almost as good as both of them breathing like a storm and burning up and clumsy, needy, desperate hands on taut skin, inside and all over like a tipped-over bucket of paint.

And after Shizuo came first – lips slightly parted and eyes fluttering shut because it was his only chance, the only time and he had to savor that – he slackened his grip and tried to add something like finesse to the mess of skin on skin and limbs tangled together. He tried to make it good for Izaya, and he didn’t altogether fail. It was good, and enough, and, yes, Izaya hurt bad when he came, bruises and streaks of red and white and covered in hot, sticky sweat.

The climax of the first movement, and the very best still to come.

“Shower,” Izaya stated simply, and a barely-trembling, wide-eyed Shizuo carried him there in his arms – realizing, Izaya was sure, that he’d gone too far in his passion, in his temporary, hungry insanity. His gaze traced the murky and darkening bruises that painted the pale skin of the smaller man, and there in his eyes was the guilt that Izaya had wanted to see. The self-deceit, self-destruction, doubt, hate, and everything – all of it – that made him a scared, fragile, _beautiful_ animal.

His guilt would be the chain that bound him to his fate – to the fate that Izaya had chosen for him, of course, and to the informant himself. Not because he loved Shizuo, but because Shizuo belonged to him.

He was his to hurt, his to break, his to observe through all of it like a particularly interesting human specimen.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izaya’s irritation peaked with just that slightest of provocations, and he winced convincingly as he nodded. Eager to avenge himself by taking advantage once more of the blonde’s fragile emotions, eager to see his efforts come to fruition in the other’s eyes.

The funny thing – but weren’t sentences that started with that phrase always just a touch too colloquial for something that was meant to provoke thought?

Still, it _was_ funny – and thought-provoking – the way guilt seemed to work in the minds of even the most inhuman humans. Hell, that might have been it right there; Shizuo was suddenly playing right into the informant’s hands, behaving just as any good human should have. He may have been human, then, even if he did embody base, animalistic instincts and violence in the informant’s eyes. Boring, yes, but Izaya no longer sought surprises, anyway. Shizuo could be human, and delicate – that would make harming him easier, if not quite as exhilarating.

Because all Izaya sought was a satisfying end, an entertaining grand finale.

For his part, Shizuo was still very willing to remain in a state of limbo – unloved, loving, and now plagued by the guilt that Izaya had intentionally instilled in him. He knew even now that he was doomed in every sense of the word. He knew what was happening to him – what was being done to him – but he knew it only in that oft-ignored rational portion of his mind.

And that part didn’t rule him – never had, really, and all Shizuo wanted now was to devote himself to something that _just might_ not break. He couldn’t surrender to hopelessness, couldn’t bow to whatever small corner of his subconscious kept insisting that this was bad, that all of it was cruel and unhealthy and wrong.

He was in love.

~

Izaya generally preferred to look his best. He paid meticulous attention to his health, to the state of his hair and the luster of his skin. It was crucial that an informant _look_ trustworthy, after all, and better besides to carry oneself with a suitable amount of pride.

And oh, did Izaya have pride. Pride and vanity enough to fill a skyscraper – thirty floors and counting.

It was for that reason that the dark bruises that colored his own arms – “We match,” he murmured to Shizuo, who seemed to be growing paler with every shade darker that Izaya’s skin became – actually bothered him considerably. An irritation. An inconvenience that he very simply disliked putting up with.

“I’m sorry,” Shizuo whispered, then, his breath catching in his throat and his hands tightening into white-knuckled fists. “Does it hurt?”

Izaya’s irritation peaked with just that slightest of provocations, and he winced convincingly as he nodded. Eager to avenge himself by taking advantage once more of the blonde’s fragile emotions, eager to see his efforts come to fruition in the other’s eyes. “Shizu-chan’s so rough,” he sighed, his voice heavy with just the right amount of pain.

The blonde bowed his head, sank to the floor beside the bathtub and splayed his fingers and palm across his face. His eyes were lidded and trembling noticeably despite that weak attempt at camouflage. “I… I didn’t mean to.” _I could’ve killed you._ Yes, he’d almost broken that delicate body – arms so slim as to be almost feminine, sharp eyes and soft hair. Cutting words and smooth lips. Smooth skin – warm, but not as warm as Shizuo’s. Little gasps and moans that sounded so beautiful they were like their own song, but Shizuo had never been one for music so maybe it was more like water flowing across pebbles, a fresh-scented spring breeze rustling leaves.

_I could’ve killed you, but that didn’t matter. Like a monster, all I cared about was what I felt. Can’t hold back, dammit, just like always, just like at school and at home and at work, every day…_

“If you say so,” the informant sighed, tone and expression now a perfect mask of apathy. He made one quick movement to raise himself up and out of the now-lukewarm bathwater. In the next instant, he had to bite back the little gasp of surprise that tried to tear its way out of him. His arms throbbed, his neck stung (the skin there had been bruised – even broken in places – by Shizuo’s searching teeth), and every movement of his muscles sent sharp pain like a current all up and down his body.  

Izaya had to glance back at Shizuo – wouldn’t want the beast to have seen this real pain, after all; falsehoods were entirely enough for Shizuo. Honesty meant giving up the façade Izaya always wore as an informant – a gesture that would surely be entirely wasted on Shizuo – meant giving the blonde more than he should ever be allowed to take.

And there he was, eyes raised to meet Izaya’s and just as pleading as ever. He wanted to be given more. Trust, maybe, or the privilege of truly being relied upon. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again, and again he collapsed in on himself – bangs obscuring his eyes, mouth setting in a firm line as he fought tears.

Why the hell did this guy look like the world was ending? Izaya could still move on his own, dammit, he could still talk without screaming. No one had died, and yet there was Shizuo, this bent out of shape – just as Izaya had hoped, of course, but that didn’t make it any less ridiculous. Any less annoying. Scenes this pathetic were practically a turn-on most of the time, but this was Shizuo. This wasn’t a human, but a monster.

And monsters didn’t deserve to reach lows this intense without the informant’s explicit permission.

“Are you planning on moping around all night?” he snapped, and this new expression was a comfortable fit for Izaya. Shizuo knew it, too – disgust, hatred, and the conviction that the one who bore its weight was no better than scum. It was the one expression that Izaya had created for Shizuo. He reserved it only for him – a substitute for a lover’s heart, a gift of sorts.

The reaction it elicited was quick and satisfying – playing Shizuo like a trumpet, like something loud and hard to control unless you’d the talent to do it well. Izaya had that talent.

“Leaving,” the blonde muttered as he stumbled to his feet, eyes wide and empty – shocked, probably, or struggling to deny that he had just painted another person – another victim – in green and black and blue. “Sorry for bothering you.”

Izaya caught him by the wrist before he could even open the bathroom door, dressed himself in a cool smile and spoke firmly. “Dry my hair,” he demanded. “And then take a bath. You’re a mess.”

Shizuo closed his eyes and shook his head wearily. “I can’t. Can’t stay here, after – I might do something else, and – you’re in pain because I couldn’t. Because I didn’t…” His voice was thick and slow, his words confused and sentences bleeding coherence as raw emotion hacked them to pieces.

“Stay,” Izaya demanded again.

 _“I can’t.”_ Voice raised, desperate, eyes and hands clenched shut and trembling, trembling.

Slipping dripping, throbbing arms around the blonde’s trembling waist, feeling the powerful muscles jerk at the contact. Izaya pressed a smile into the back of Shizuo’s neck and enjoyed the shiver that ran from there on down the other’s spine. “What’d you do to that arm of yours, Shizu-chan?”

The blonde didn’t respond, only tried to remember how to pull warm, wet air into his lungs. Izaya knew – knew that his monster’s breath had caught in his throat, that the non sequitur, the touch, the desire and, oh, yes, the guilt were smothering the blonde.

“Do you like pain?” Izaya bit back some of his own, too, and let his delicate fingers glide past Shizuo’s purpled shoulder, down to his hand and he shifted with it, pressed himself into Shizuo’s side and whispered, “I don’t.”

“My fault,” Shizuo mumbled, chest shuddering as his brain forced him to breathe – clumsy, half-unwilling self-preservation.

“Yes,” Izaya granted, lips and soft breath heating the blonde’s ear and, with it, the rest of his body. “So stay.”

“I fell,” Shizuo whispered, eyes fixed on something far from Izaya. “That’s why – the bruises.”

A lie, surely, but even Izaya wasn’t certain of whether Shizuo himself knew of the falsehood. Another fiction he had convinced himself of – impulsive, self-wrecking. The best he could do to cope with everything was to let the pain drown out the noise in his head and the tightness in his chest.

“Don’t lie to me, Shizu-chan.” A low purr, a quick thrum.

“I like _you_ ,” Shizuo said, breath coming faster. “Pain is… it doesn’t matter. I’m used to it.”

“It matters to me, Shizu-chan. I’m not built like a monster.” Just like that, switching to a different wavelength and enjoying the disconnect. Izaya played every game by his own rules.

The blonde turned to meet Izaya, didn’t mind at all that his thoughts were being messed with, bowed his head and made a promise with his gaze tangled in Izaya’s. “I’ll stay. Until you’re better.”

Eyes wide, prey-like – now doubtful, now repentant, all brown and growing murkier. The look that darkened those loquacious orbs was beyond simple description. It was a sensation, like chocolate but sweeter, like black coffee but more exhilarating.

That look was what Izaya loved. He adored it, yet he despised the consciousness, the personality, the existence behind it. That was what set it apart from his love for humanity, of course, what made it something new. It exceeded his expectations, distinguished itself from all other pleasures – because candy was always more cloying on the shelf than it was on the tongue, unless it was Shizuo’s sweet, staggering misery.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This – _this_ was what it meant to wear deception like a second skin. This was Orihara Izaya.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was playing around on the statistics page, and I noticed that this chapter now puts my total word count on AO3 over 100,000. Ah, that feels like some kinda accomplishment, right there.

The next logical step, of course, would have been for Izaya to ‘execute’ Shizu-chan. He would, of course – finish it all with a bang and a broken heart – but his flair for the dramatic was unrivaled. He had to draw the moment out so that there would be that much more suspense at the end – so that everything might construct from scratch a towering high point in Izaya’s life. A victory.

He _loved_ winning.

And, Izaya reasoned, Shizuo loved losing. He loved being crushed, loved pain and emotional strife. Loved being used and loved knowing that at some point he would be thrown away. The informant knew that he loved these things because that was what it meant to love Izaya.

It meant masochism.

And, sure, maybe Izaya hadn’t always been correct in his interpretations of Shizuo’s thoughts and actions. This was different, though – this was simple reasoning. Obvious truth.

Shizuo wasn’t a stranger, after all. He knew that Izaya didn’t love people – he _enjoyed_ them. He knew that he didn’t spend time with them so much as he exploited them. He manipulated them. He didn’t live normally, because that was less interesting. Izaya had no use for normal or gentle.

And he didn’t need sympathy, either. Only the kicks he selfishly derived from his continued efforts to twist Shizuo – to bend him into something unrecognizable, something broken.

He was convinced that he didn’t love Shizuo.

And Shizuo was convinced of the same thing.

~

Shizuo slept on the floor by Izaya’s bed that night, and the informant could feel heavy despondency curling like smoke in the lightless air about the blonde’s – legs drawn close to his chest, shivering under a single blanket and no futon – body.

The informant enjoyed that spectacle with every sprawling centimeter of his attention. He reveled in it – in the muted sobs, the never-slowing breathing, the trembling visible even in the gloom of a darkened room – and he fell asleep as quickly as if it were all a gentle lullaby.

Shizuo did not.

 

The next morning arrived clothed in slate-gray robes and a muffler. Its breath – someone’s, anyway – fogged up the windows of Izaya’s bedroom, and the informant awoke to a blurred panorama of the just-waking-up city.

Shizuo was awake, red-rimmed eyes and disheveled blonde hair tangled in the hand upon which he rested his head. Bare-chested, too, his uniform in the process of being washed – in accordance with Izaya’s fervent request – an expression of his desire to see Shizuo shivering and cold like this, too, but that wasn’t _all_. “Morning,” he mumbled, and his voice was as rough as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. It kindled Izaya’s most intense interest, cheered him immediately and cleared his sleep-heavy mind.

Ah – truly, today would be a day of opportunities.

“Ne, Shizu-chan.” Izaya eyed the blonde, savored the slight widening of his eyes and the spark of misery behind that. His response was a mere grunt – just about right for a protozoan, Izaya decided, but it wasn’t so much unfriendly as it was subservient. And _that_ made it just about right for a tamed beast.

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya repeated – appreciating the way the taste of the nickname had changed, the pulse thrumming in its newest connotation. It wasn’t the name of a rival, now – not the name of a nuisance, not a would-be lover, but that of a possession. It was a name that meant domination, marked superiority and power over the once-strong. “What would you do if I tried to kill you right now?”

Shizuo’s expression changed only slightly – a touch of startled confusion, and then he was back to looking resigned. “…You want to?” His voice soft, not placating but prepared for a harsh rebuttal.

Izaya continued to press him – brushed the question aside, smirked and proceeded according to that fluctuating wavelength of his. “Would you let me? Or would you return the favor?”

Alarmed brown eyes flitted back up from the mess of blanket and clasped hands. “No – I wouldn’t…!”

“Of _course_ you wouldn’t let yourself be killed. Shizu-chan’s a monster, after all, and monsters only exist to survive.” Izaya cocked his head to one side, smiled innocently – inquisitively, even – and asked, “But you also exist to kill, don’t you? Is that fun?”

Shizuo shook his head. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he whispered. “I’ve… I… tried to change” – dragged nervous fingers through his hair, then lowered his hand and held the back of it to his lips – “I’ve never killed anyone.” His voice came out muffled, of course, but Izaya understood nevertheless.

Huh. He’d always figured that the names of Shizuo’s past victims were simply a handful of informational tidbits that Izaya had never quite been able to uncover. To think that the blonde had never actually taken a life…

Damn, was the guy _lucky_. How many soft landings and quick trips to the hospital had it taken to keep blood off his hands?

“That’s so boring, Shizu-chan. Are you trying to say that you’re okay with being killed by me~?”

Shizuo let his eyes fall shut – girlishly thick eyelashes, tears still hanging stubbornly from one or two. “I guess.”

A little metallic echo, then, sing of blade slicing air – Izaya’s knife pressed to Shizuo’s throat, his smirk at once both gloating and challenging.

The thin curtains of pale skin that hid Shizuo’s eyes from the informant gradually rose. There was something like steel there, now – cold, empty – pain so strong that Shizuo could do nothing but accept it. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and Izaya pulled the blade back toward himself without leaving a mark. “Did I keep you up? Is that why you’re mad?”

Was he – actually that dense? “I’m not – ”

No, no. Maybe anger was better-suited to this scene, anyway. Yes – that and disgust. He’d been working up to it from detached cruelty and loaded threats, but he could afford to rush just this much.

Oh, but now he’d already stumbled over his lines, and what good was a moving scene if the all-important actor couldn’t get his damn lines right? What to do, what to do – and what was with Shizuo, brown eyes overflowing with sympathetic apology? This wasn’t right at all. Izaya didn’t stumble – ever, for if he did his acting would cease to be acting. It would be reality, and he needed the pretense more than ever now.

“A-are you okay?” Shizuo ducked forward, eyebrows raised in quiet surprise. Izaya was never at a loss for words, was never quiet or as frustrated as he seemed now. “Does your… your arm hurt…?”

There – that was better, something foreseeable and easy to respond to. Izaya seized the opportunity to restore what he then deemed to be the most suitable mask – shifted his arm and – yes, his body hurt far worse today than it had last night. His reaction was carefully measured, though – a costume, an ingredient in this recipe, a quick cringe and a reluctant nod.

Shizuo took the bait, this time, because Izaya delivered it as flawlessly as if there had never been any hiccup.

“Shizu-chan…” A whisper – as if he were putting the mask down rather than putting it on, and now his hesitation may as well have been an intentional part of the act. This – _this_ was what it meant to wear deception like a second skin. This was Orihara Izaya.

It was irritating that Shizuo had managed, even in this state, to catch Izaya so off-guard. It was annoying and it pissed the informant off a little bit, but – but, he told himself – frustration made the prize at the end that much more enjoyable. He had saved himself, and Shizuo was fool enough to accept whatever Izaya wanted him to believe. So, it was okay.

“Shizu-chan, could you run out and buy me some pain meds?”

The darkness in Shizuo’s expression lightened by the tiniest of degrees. “Is that okay?” Is it okay for me to stick around like this, to be ordered around and exploited by you? Is it okay for me to keep working hard? To keep hoping?

Yes, Shizu-chan. It’s exactly what I want.

And so the informant nodded, raised one eyebrow as if to wonder why the blonde felt the need to ask such a silly question. He climbed to his feet and dug a fresh set of clothes out of his closet – decidedly out of season, but that was every bit the point. Shizuo’s gaze faltered on the black tank top, all thin fabric and meant to expose a fair amount of skin to what was not now the hot breath of summer. He hesitated, but a nervous smile won out and he tried, “‘S not really the season for that yet, right…?”

Izaya looked hurt, then, and this time it was meant to be mocking. Shizuo would accept it no matter what, anyway, because this was Izaya talking – Izaya asking him to do unreasonable things, Izaya in pain and wanting nothing more than for Shizuo to bow before his every demand.

He wanted everyone – all of his adorable humans – to see the stains of his Shizu-chan’s devotion, the painted canvas of his newfound vulnerability. He wanted them to see Shizu-chan cold, to see him cracking under the collective weight of the decisions that he had willingly made.

The informant smiled accordingly, savored the thought, widened his eyes and mixed harmless charm with an unvoiced threat. “Eh~? Come on, tell me you’ll at least show off those bruises you worked so hard on! Look – such a lovely shade of purple!” He nodded, too, in the general direction of Shizuo’s extensive array of blemished skin – more extensive, even, than before, for now they completely covered both arms – heatless clothing, a fire of pain, and Izaya wondered how the protozoan was even able to lift his arms with injuries like that.

Shizuo’s expression as he listened - and was there even any room there for _physical_ pain? - told Izaya that he knew exactly what the informant’s intentions were. It told him, also, that he didn’t mind, and his gaze rose slowly – to Izaya’s fingers curled about the fabric, to his wrists and then to his forearms – beyond them to his elbows and then to the darkest swathe of ghostly fingers and the vanished pressure of hungry palms. His gaze followed the marks up to the point at which they finally disappeared beneath the sleeves of a loose T-shirt - still shuddering, maybe, still crying to Shizuo - scolding him for all that he was and all that he was not, for his love and for his failure.

He nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izaya hadn’t been expecting to ever see his Shizu-chan angry again.

Izaya was capable of anticipating a great many things. He anticipated fights – started them, even – and death, killing, stealing… Ikebukuro wasn’t such a bad city, of course, but Izaya was as much a part of its underworld as he was a fragment of its daytime mask. There was something to be said for staying alert to danger, and he reveled in the simple act of knowing. Expecting was his forte.

He hadn’t expected Heiwajima Shizuo to confess his love to him.

Yet that had been okay, after all, because the occasional unexpected twist was like icing on the cake of Izaya’s daily existence. He went with it because of that, and things naturally settled back into a new but nonetheless predictable routine. Shizuo visiting him every day. Shizuo lying to himself, Shizuo in pain.

Shizuo eventually coming to realize the reality behind his delusions, and Izaya taking advantage of his vulnerability. To increase his control – Shizuo’s love, his lust, his impulsiveness – all of it was the brush and the several layers of paint that hid the very wrongness of their relationship.

Izaya had intended to control everything even more absolutely from that point on, and he did – for a time. He anticipated everything. This was his play, his painting, his symphony – and a thousand other metaphors, too, because this was a truly complex undertaking. Art and science.

It was complex, yes, and still it was easy.

It was easy and predictable, yet…

Izaya hadn’t been expecting to ever see his Shizu-chan angry again.

~

The nearest convenience store was still around fifteen minutes away, and even Shizuo was starting to have a hard time ignoring his own exhaustion. His upper body throbbed in response to every jarring impact of his heavy feet on the cold pavement, and his breath – in and out, in and out, a lot faster than it should have been given just this much exertion – formed heavy white clouds in front of him. His face felt pretty warm – he didn’t relish the thought, but he was nevertheless certain that he was blushing.

Hard not to… It was early, sure, but this was still a district of Tokyo; one could always expect to meet a good handful of people at any hour of the day or night. Shizuo doubted that anyone here really knew him, of course, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel their stares sliding like eels all along the surface of his damaged body.

He hated being the center of attention, and he hated imagining what they all thought of his wounds. That was just troublesome, mostly, and trouble was always the last thing he wanted.

Second only to letting Izaya down, of course.

And Shizuo owed him at least this much, right? For losing control like that, for failing to change his violent nature – he could at least handle the wintry air, the judgmental looks and the startled exclamation of the clerk when he finally made his purchase. (The last of his money, too, but he’d make that work somehow. He only wished he could have afforded a little something extra to offer Izaya.)

He hurried back to the informant’s apartment – surprised himself a little bit, too, because the twenty-minute wait for Izaya to acknowledge the sounding of the buzzer yielded no impatience whatsoever in the blonde.

He didn’t even mind when the informant accepted the little bag, waited with a satisfied smirk in the doorway, and then finally wondered _‘what are you still hanging around here for, Shizu-chan?’_

The walk back to his own apartment was painful in a lot of ways. His arms still hurt despite the fact that his extremities were going increasingly numb in the frigid morning air, and he was only earning more sideways glances – full-on, shameless stares, too – with every shuddering step. His hunger was eating him from the inside out – audibly – and the warm scents wafting up from just-opening food stands and restaurants weren’t helping anything.

He hunched his shoulders, bowed his head, craved a cigarette but had to let fatigue stand in place of soothing nicotine. It took him a while to figure out that he was actually drifting in and out of consciousness – opening his eyes and not really knowing where he was – almost falling, repeatedly forgetting what he’d just been thinking or doing.

Celty found him like that – had to tap him gently on the shoulder, her bike slowing to a crawl beside him, to elicit any kind of reaction.

Shizuo gave a start, then – turned to look at her with eyes that dreaded what he already knew to be true.

“C-Celty.”

He stopped. She stopped. There were no words, no flash of the dullahan’s PDA, no stumbling attempts at explanation – his clothes, the time, the marks on his arms and under his eyes.

_Do you need a ride?_ she typed at length.

Shizuo bit his lower lip, sighed and turned to examine the cracks in the pavement. “I'm fine,” he decided at last. Right – he actually couldn’t go home yet, anyway. He had work, which meant that Tom-san would be counting on him to show up on time. Soon.

_I insist,_ Celty tapped out.

“I fell,” he explained. Lame fucking excuse, anyway, but he honestly couldn’t do a lot better than that weak non sequitur.

_Then you might have a broken bone somewhere. You should have Shinra take a look at it._

Shizuo shook his head – not refusing her, really – just marveling wordlessly at this woman who somehow knew exactly how to deal with him. She hadn’t bothered to second-guess his claim. She didn’t ask him for the truth. But she wasn’t about to take no for an answer, and he didn’t want to force her to broach any unpleasant topics directly.

“Hah,” he breathed. “I guess.”

 

A blur of movement, wind on his face and the press of a delicate body before his own – he gripped the seat beneath him, shook himself awake again and again and worked to maintain his balance with just that much support. He didn’t touch Celty – didn’t trust himself to, those shoulders probably not as surprisingly dainty as Izaya’s but nonetheless he couldn’t be too safe anymore.

They pulled to a sudden, still-smooth stop, and he didn’t exactly remember how they came to be inside and warm just moments later.

“Shizuo-kun,” Shinra noted – evidently surprised, and he fumbled with the door as he closed it behind the pair. “What on Earth are you thinking, wearing clothes like that at this time of the year?!”

“Jus’ kinda put somethin’ on,” Shizuo mumbled as he let his eyes fall shut again. Pretended that he wasn’t really clamming up now – leaning heavily on the back of a couch, everything oddly unfocused and the sounds of his anxious friends both real and distant. He was talking plenty, and his sleep-deprived brain was only trying to fool him into believing otherwise.

“Shizuo-kun.”

He wanted to sleep…

“Shizuo-kun!”

“Damn, so annoying,” the blonde grumbled – Shinra’s face swimming right in front of his own, slender fingers reaching up to adjust the position of those old glasses.

The doctor was shoved suddenly out of the way, and Shizuo found himself blinking wearily up at a too-blurry-almost-illegible message on the screen of Celty’s PDA. _Tell me your address._

“Don’t need a ride there yet…”

_I’m just going to pick up some clothes for you,_ the dullahan explained. Something about her answer was a little too gentle, a little too tolerant – a little too careful. Shizuo couldn’t figure out why, really, and he also missed the obvious implication of the dullahan’s message.

He told her.

Didn’t remember her leaving, either, but she was gone when he opened his eyes again. Shinra was beside him, then, his attention trained on the bruises that littered his friend’s body – “No broken bones, but you’ll need to take it easy or you risk…”

Shizuo stopped listening after that – stopped remembering, stopped caring, didn’t speak a word when he was practically dragged onto a guest futon in another room and offered water (painkillers, ice, and the list went on). He might have mentioned something about Tom-san, and he might have then heard a brief one-sided conversation explaining his impending day off – but that may just as well have been a dream, and all he was really sure of was the mounting ache in his chest. The lump in his throat.

That pain – the pain of missing Izaya – was only slightly worse here than it was when Shizuo was at the informant’s side. It traced patterns in the sands of his being, twisted him with the lithe hands and cold fingers of needing-and-not-receiving.

 

It wasn’t the same as anger. Anger was what he felt days later – concerned because Izaya hadn’t answered his door after nearly an hour, and what if something’d happened to him? – when Shizuo finally let himself into the informant’s apartment. When he found him on the phone, mid-conversation, laughing and –

“Well, to be honest – the idea was to get hurt, but the brute really went all out~!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't fully explain the reflection at the beginning of the chapter, but I just couldn't resist the urge to finish like this. Consider it a cliffhanger.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the hell – didn’t care? He didn’t care about himself, but he felt the need to shout and threaten violence all for something as trivial as Izaya’s body – his wellbeing?

Gloating – in front of others, at least – really wasn’t Orihara Izaya’s style, of course, and that was largely because it tended to be result in slip-ups like these.

Right – the satisfaction which he derived from boasting and bragging often wasn’t worth the inconvenience that accompanied it. He’d been foolish even in his oh-so-favorable position to believe himself safe, and yet – even as Shizuo stood there with his chocolate eyes warm and wet and growing warmer by the second – he couldn’t imagine that the blonde was really, truly angry.

He never would have guessed that Shizuo – temperamental, sensitive Shizuo – could put up with everything else and not this little thing – this thing that wasn’t really about the blonde, anyway, that should have paled next to all of his own suffering.

~

“You,” the taller man breathed. The brown of his eyes was as murky a shade as ever, yet there was an odd brightness to that darkness. The kind of brightness that Izaya hadn’t seen in Shizuo in quite some time. The dangerous kind, maybe. “What are you saying?”

The informant sighed inaudibly and bade a quick farewell to the man on the other end of the line. He flipped his cell phone shut, then, with a decisive click, and the coldness of his next words contrasted nicely with the heat rising in Shizuo’s. “Whenever will Shizu-chan cease to be surprised by every little thing?”

The blonde shook his head, and his fingers twitched upward for just an instant before relaxing again at his sides.

“Can’t think of anything to say?”

“Izaya,” Shizuo breathed. His voice was shaking more than the rest of him. “Please explain.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Don’t. Please, I… I can’t let this go.”

Izaya laughed, crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back to rest his feet on the desk in front of him. He thought the pose suited that of a stereotypical villain, which suited this situation – and, by extension, the informant as well. It suited the man before him, begging and angry but powerless to do anything about it. Too scared to act on the anger, it seemed, and too weak to fully suppress it.

“Don’t wanna.”

What it _didn’t_ suit, however, was being forcibly dragged from his favorite swiveling chair – knocked to the floor by his legs as they fell away from the smooth mahogany of his desk – and then shoved into a wall with force sufficient to quite literally knock his breath away. It _didn’t_ suit the look on Shizuo’s face. The tears in his eyes. “Please,” the blonde shuddered, and his voice was as tense as his fingers fisted in the informant’s shirt. “Please.”

Okay – so perhaps Izaya had been a bit too hasty in drawing his conclusions. Shizuo was obviously not averse to giving his anger some paltry amount of free reign, now. It was bad, certainly, but it was not yet unmanageable.

And the blonde continued to plead – again and again, the same word and the same ambiguous desire that drove it. He didn’t stop, and Izaya didn’t move or speak a word in response. He only replaced startled wide eyes with a serene smile and then a smirk as Shizuo persisted in trying to elicit some explanation from him – and if only Izaya knew what it was that he was concealing, what it was that his stationary lips refused to reveal. What Shizuo wanted, and what the anger in his eyes meant.

To Izaya, it meant frustration – because this was _his Shizu-chan_ , and it was unthinkable – no, it was beyond impossible now for the blonde to be so erratic. To do something this out of line. He wasn’t reading off of the script that had so generously been written just for him.

“Izaya, your arms. The bruises.” Shizuo was still shaking, still breathing rough and fast and angry, and only then did Izaya begin to understand. Only then did he allow himself a knowing smile, because comprehension meant control. Regaining control was good, was natural. He could fix this. He was a master at fixing, so it should have been okay even if his ability to make accurate predictions had failed him once already.

“Oh, so you were really talking about this before?”

Shizuo responded to that only indirectly, and his speech was erratic, to say the least. There was no finesse to _this_ , either, but that suited the blonde. Clumsiness was his trademark, after all, and it had always been a part of what held him back. A part of _him_. “You meant _me_? You meant that I was – supposed to – that you wanted me to hurt you – Izaya? When we – that – that time?”

“Mm.” The informant nodded – or tried to, anyway, and Shizuo's eyes followed every rustling movement with careful attention. “Maybe if you let me down from the wall before you actually break it, we can talk about that.”

Shizuo did – lowered the informant gently and slowly until his feet finally made contact with solid ground, but his expression remained dangerous and he did not move back from the shorter man. He continued to tower over Izaya, and the informant had to make a conscious effort not to let his consternation show.

He had to force this scene along, because it wasn’t fun or even particularly interesting and that meant that it had no place here. It had to be cut short. It was an aberration of the worst persuasion.

“You’re not really surprised, are you, Shizu-chan.” Not a question. It demanded that Shizuo agree, but the blonde didn’t respond the way he should have. He didn’t gaze shyly off to the side or reach up to mess with his hair. He didn’t look like some tragic martyr and he didn’t return to his usual, well-rehearsed lines.

“You’re saying that you did. You wanted to be hurt.” Shizuo’s voice was level, but not calm.

“If you want to phrase it that way, yeah,” Izaya agreed, and he didn’t bother to elaborate. Not that telling Shizuo about everything should have had an effect on the eventual outcome, but –

– but this was all wrong anyway, and at this point and after this much disruption the informant couldn’t be too careful.

And there it was – Shizuo’s fingers tangled nervously in his hair, his teeth working at his bottom lip, drawing blood from one corner and his face flushed. “Why…? Because of me? You’re an idiot, Izaya, I don’t – I don’t like violence, _really_ – ”

Hah – who did Shizu-chan think he was? Assuming that Izaya had somehow meant to please _him_ – no, and the shorter man had pride enough that he couldn’t see letting that one go.

“I know,” he interrupted. “That’s why, Shizu-chan. Because it’s more fun that way. Or, what – did you honestly think I’d go to this much trouble for _your_ sake? And here I’d thought we’d come to a mutual understanding regarding my actual feelings for you.”

He felt the sudden pressure of two large hands heavy on his shoulders, then, and his eyes widened as Shizuo continued to speak, as his grip on the informant grew tighter. “I don’t care about any of that,” the blonde hissed, and then he was shouting – “I just want you to take care of yourself! I don’t want to fucking hurt you, but if you do it on purpose, what am I – what can I –?!”

What the hell – didn’t care? He didn’t care about himself, but he felt the need to shout and threaten violence all for something as trivial as Izaya’s body – his wellbeing? That just didn’t make sense, but – but he couldn’t just ask the blonde what he was thinking. He couldn’t give in yet, because he’d already put in too much time to waste everything on a little bit of curiosity.

“What, is that all?” He kept his voice calm, his face passive. His limbs still.

Shizuo’s eyes were sad and incredibly angry at once. Like he didn’t know who to kill first – himself, or Izaya. “You shouldn’t have let me do any of that.” The sex. The desperate, hungry, needy sex and the hands and their bruises painted on white skin and all the blood bubbling up beneath that. All the hidden wincing, flinches and stifled gasps.

“It was your decision, Shizu-chan. I only provided you with the bait you needed. You’re the one who accepted it all as a valid excuse. Like a monster.”

“I know I am,” Shizuo breathed, and his cheeks sparkled in the dimmer-than-daylight office – tears, salty and stinging and his skin already raw all along the paths traced by the fat little droplets. “But I’m trying to change. I keep thinking I can do that if I have you, but – please, don’t ever put yourself on the line like that.”

Izaya smothered a smile behind the back of his hand. Did this idiot honestly expect him to just go along with that? Did he truly think that the conversation would end just like that – on a peaceful note? On a note of reconciliation?

“What’s the big deal, Shizu-chan? It’s not the first time I’ve used sex to get what I want.”

Information and the more intricate network required to obtain it did, after all, sometimes come at that price. It was something to which Izaya was simply accustomed.

That was part of why he didn’t expect, either, the look of stunned horror on Shizuo’s face. The sudden shift forward of his hands from the informant’s shoulders to his shoulder blades, to his sides and the blonde’s arms wrapped tight around him. His arms, just as bruised as Izaya’s but not hidden behind warm winter clothes. Still on display, and all the crap he’d gotten for that. All the explaining – lying and half-truths – he’d had to do. All the apologizing and the please-don’t-worry’s.

“That hurts,” the informant complained, voice muffled by the stifling warmth of Shizuo’s chest. “Let go.”

He felt Shizuo shake his head and tighten his grip. “I love you,” the blonde said, as if that had anything to do with what he was doing now.

“I don’t feel the same way,” Izaya hissed, and now he resorted to trying to fight his way out of the other’s hold. “I don’t see why it should matter so much to you, Shizu-chan. It’s none of your concern!”

“Yes, it is!” Shizuo growled back. “You can use me if you want – I don’t even care, Izaya, but you _can’t_ use me to hurt yourself! You can’t _try_ to get hurt, not ever, because – you do that, I’ll definitely… I’ll definitely… If you don’t help me hold back, even you could wind up seriously injured, or worse, and…” He let his voice trail off, let the extra rush of blood to his cheeks stand in place of more unsteady vocalizations.

“Hah,” Izaya laugh-sighed. “Don’t tell me you only want me for my durability. How insulting.”

“I don’t know what I want you for,” Shizuo whispered as he let Izaya move away from him again – several feet, and then there was a desk like a chasm opening up between them. “I don’t know why I can’t stop wanting you. It’s just – how it is. I can’t make it go away. I tried for a long time, and I thought I could do this without hurting you. I have to.”

“No, Shizu-chan,” Izaya breathed, and now he was shaking just as much as the blonde – with rage, now, with mortification, because this was his stage and his plan and he no longer had any control at all. He no longer knew what Shizuo was doing or thinking or where guilt had turned to an all-consuming desire to _protect_. He didn’t understand these reactions or the blonde’s feelings – and suddenly those ‘feelings’ were more of an annoyance to him than anything else he’d ever been forced to put up with.

“No, you don’t have to do anything, Shizu-chan. Just get out,” he all but snarled, and Shizuo complied only slowly, only with eyes hidden behind bangs and his fingers still curled into fists of regret and still anger.

“I’ll come again,” he offered. “I’m – sorry, I just – ”

“Forget it,” Izaya insisted, and that was all.

 _He_ didn’t get angry often, either, but this was just too much. This was not the ‘breaking point’ he’d been looking for.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was only over until it wasn't anymore.

Izaya had planned for none of the anger and alienation that had somehow exploded between himself and Shizuo. He had failed to anticipate it. He had failed to control it. He couldn’t very well fix it, now, and so he avoided the problem entirely. Because it had been nothing more than a diversion to begin with, he told himself. Because Shizuo meant nothing to him – just a wounded animal, a little fun on the side of Izaya’s normal haunts and entertainments. Breaking with him in that manner felt like a failure, sure, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t shrug off and eventually forget about.

He invariably saw it as such – a screw-up, _the one that got away_ – until 10 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes, and 48 seconds later – and he wasn’t keeping track, not really, but there was a clock somewhere and it was ticking away like the countdown to the finale that had been canceled until further notice.

Until he saw Shizuo – lithe body just as lithe, muscles just as lean and strong underneath the smooth fabric of a neatly-ironed bartender’s uniform – Shizuo, with his eyes downcast and his blonde hair freshly dyed at the roots. Shizuo, looking just the same as ever except for the look on his face.

Izaya didn’t call to him, but that was because he didn’t have to. The monster smelled him, maybe, or maybe he’d been waiting all along, and when he looked up his eyes were empty. Like a snake that – having started with the sharp end of its tail – had finally devoured all of itself, the feeling had gone from Shizuo’s face. The fire, the quick-tempered volcano and the waves of grief and guilt and fear. All that was left in its wake was a swathe of brown canvas and procedural thought. A nothingness.

Shizuo looked at him for a long time – never noticing that Tom was waiting with curious eyes fixed on his kohai – and then he nodded.

“Hey,” he greeted Izaya. Hey.

You’re the one who did this to me.

And it was at that point, all those millions upon millions of long nanoseconds later, that Izaya realized how decidedly _not_ a failure the whole thing had been.

It was late, but he considered it a victory and a climax and the best come and gone and he celebrated it alone in his echoing apartment that night.

It was over.

~

And then it wasn’t.

“You have no right to tell me something like that, Shinra.”

“No one’s asking you to change, Izaya-kun. At least apologize – that’s all.”

“For what?” But, then, he knew what. For the look in Shizuo’s eyes. For what he refused to feel. “Shizu-chan chose for himself. Tell me, does he know you’re calling me like this now?”

Shinra was silent on the other end for a long moment. Then – “No, he doesn’t.”

“See?” Izaya laughed. “Tell him to drop by for a visit. Always glad to have him.”

He hung up, then, and the doctor didn’t bother trying to call again. They both knew that Izaya wouldn’t’ve picked up, anyway, and they knew also that the informant was _not_ always glad to have Shizuo. Not anymore. He’d celebrated. He’d seen the end result. He’d lost interest.

It didn’t _matter_ that he couldn’t explain the lingering irritation that came with being reminded.

~

“I’m sorry.”

And didn’t it just figure that those were the first words out of his mouth?

“Are you?” Izaya’s voice was cultivated disinterest. The demand that Shizuo leave – _get out, I don’t need you here_ – was heavy in the scrawling sketch of those two short words. It was heavy in the way he fixed his gaze on the screen of the laptop in front of him. In the way his fingers performed a fast and unbroken dance on the keyboard even as Shizuo hummed an affirmative and spoke again.

“I don’t want this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“No,” the blonde whispered. His eyes were blank, still, but his brow was furrowed in what appeared to be a desperate attempt at remembering what it was to _feel_. It was funny; Izaya had to wonder just how hard he must have worked to smother all that in the first place. “I mean being alone. I mean… the way you look right now.”

One of Izaya’s eyebrows jerked up, and he let his hands fall away from a half-finished report. “I haven’t changed, Shizu-chan.”

“Yeah,” Shizuo sighed. “You have.”

“Would you be terribly surprised if I told you to leave right now?”

No. No, but that didn’t mean that Shizuo _would_ leave.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I guess we have to do something… different.” He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, inclined his head in an all-too-familiar gesture of shyness, and added, “I’ll be whatever you need me to be.”

“I need you to be gone,” Izaya decided, and his hands were back on the keyboard in the same instant. “Now.”

“It’s not over,” Shizuo stated after another moment passed still and silent. “I’m still here.”

Was that supposed to make Izaya feel better about anything? Was it supposed to resemble encouragement? Comfort?

To think that he needed anything like that was ludicrous in the first place.

~

Perhaps it didn’t matter, because regardless of whatever reasons, Shizuo did stay with Izaya that night. He stayed the night after that and the day after that and he made breakfast and dinner and he smiled – laughed, even. The feeling returned to his eyes, and Izaya refused to believe that he’d failed all over again.

“Tell me something,” the blonde asked after another handful of uncounted hours. Izaya didn’t know what he meant, but that wasn’t what made him wonder. He only wanted to know when his Shizu-chan had become so bold. To demand instead of requesting – yes, it was unlike him.

“Ever heard of the bystander effect? It happens during so-called emergency situations. The bigger the group of humans, the less chance there is that any one of them will help. What was it again? Ah, right – diffusion of responsibility.” Psychology, apparently, was useful even beyond the realm of human observation. Izaya chanced a smirk and watched Shizuo’s eyes follow the expression.

“That isn’t what I meant,” the blonde murmured. “About you.”

“How clichéd of you, Shizu-chan. Consider yourself lucky that I don’t just call the police. Or the yakuza.” He leaned forward, then – elbows on his knees, facing Shizuo on the couch as the setting sun cast long shadows in the shapes of chess pieces. “Say, which would you prefer?”

Shizuo smiled in spite of himself. This time, it just barely managed to reach his eyes. “Yakuza, I guess. And you didn’t answer the question.”

“Thought so,” Izaya exhaled, and it was clear in the way he turned his eyes on the blonde that he had no intention of complying with the latter request. “Shizu-chan is a born troublemaker, after all.”

“Don’t confuse me with you.”

“No,” Izaya argued. “I’m not. You’re a huge pain, Shizu-chan.”

It was. He was. Everything was supposed to have been about huge groups of people, after all. It wasn’t supposed to have been about concentrated love. It wasn’t even supposed to have been about _love_ – not like this, anyway. Izaya sometimes wondered what part of all that had been broken, and for how long. He wondered why he didn’t force the blonde away again. What had changed about the way he looked at Shizuo. The way he talked with him when he wasn’t cold and cruel and just like he’d always been.

When he’d stopped acting and planning and _thinking_ , and why he continued to allow the blonde to break things that shouldn’t have been broken. Definitions. Barriers. Scripts.

He wondered, too, just how long it would be before he stopped wondering entirely.

“Yeah,” Shizuo agreed, then. “I guess I am. Sorry.”

“Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading all the way to the end! ^.^*


End file.
